Walkthrough published by the official CELPIP Test channel.
Overview
Listening to Problem Solving is the first scored part of the CELPIP Listening test, and it follows an unscored practice task that lets you settle in and check your headset. Two speakers have a problem - a wrong order, a broken appliance, a scheduling clash, a mistake at work - and they talk their way towards a solution.
The recording is broken into segments. You hear one, answer questions about it, then hear the next, which means your notes only ever have to survive a short stretch of speech. Like every recording in this test, each segment plays once and cannot be replayed.
Structure
- One conversation between two speakers, delivered in consecutive segments.
- Questions after each segment, about that segment only.
- Eight questions in total - the joint largest set in the Listening test.
- Audio only, played once, with note taking permitted throughout.
What to expect
The situations are ordinary and the language is conversational. What makes the part demanding is that the problem changes shape as the speakers talk: an idea raised in the first segment is often dismissed in the second.
- A customer and a member of staff sorting out a faulty product or a wrong order.
- Colleagues covering an absence or rescuing a schedule that has slipped.
- A tenant and a building manager over a repair or a noise complaint.
- Friends or family reorganising plans after something has gone wrong.
Suggested steps and timing
The audio sets the pace, not you, so the preparation happens before it starts. Use the practice task to fix your volume and to lay your paper out: one column for the problem, one for the options raised, one for what is agreed.
While a segment plays, note only what changes - a new option, a refusal, a condition, a decision. When the questions arrive, answer them from that segment and move on briskly; the next segment begins whether or not you have finished second-guessing the last one. Do not leave anything to check later, because nothing is replayed.
Key strategies
- Name the problem in your own words as soon as it is stated. Almost every question afterwards depends on it.
- Track options and their fate. Suggestions that are raised and then rejected are the standard wrong answers here.
- Note who wants what. The two speakers rarely have identical priorities, and several questions turn on the difference.
- Use the pauses. This is the one part that gives them, so finish your notes and reset your attention before the next segment starts.
Common pitfalls
- Choosing an option that was mentioned but never actually agreed to.
- Writing full sentences during the audio, and missing the next two lines while doing it.
- Carrying an answer from an earlier segment into a question about a later one, after the situation has moved on.
- Still arguing with a question in your head when the following segment begins.
Final advice
Practise with recordings you allow yourself to hear only once. Replaying is the habit that quietly ruins listening practice, because it trains you to recover rather than to catch. Get used to leaving an uncertain answer behind as well: the audio always moves on, and a candidate still deliberating over the last question loses the segment they are supposed to be hearing.